


Out of the Rain

by Lassenby



Category: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (Video Games)
Genre: M/M, Mentions of Infertility, Mentions of m-preg, Pheromones, Shameless Smut, male with a vagina, taking a lot of liberties with Orc reproduction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:40:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24398170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lassenby/pseuds/Lassenby
Summary: Talion learns an interesting fact about uruk anatomy. Later, when he and Ratbag take shelter in a cave to escape from a storm, he learns a few more things.
Relationships: Ratbag the Coward/Talion
Comments: 23
Kudos: 79
Collections: Wasn't Quite Expecting This (But I Loved It)





	Out of the Rain

Concealed by shadows and the dark, moonless night, Talion and Ratbag crept through the stronghold like cats, slinking atop high stone walls and through alleyways.

Any noise they made was drowned out by cacophony in the stronghold. The roar of bonfires, metallic clanks, wooden clunks, and the glog-slurred voices of uruk-hai raised to shout threats or brag about past victories in battle. If there were any guards, they had all abandoned their posts and joined in the drunken revelry.

This was a good sign. Talion planned to take over the stronghold soon, and if this clan’s leaders allowed such disarray in the ranks, it should be easy to assassinate them and install his own loyal orcs in their positions.

Ratbag grabbed Talion’s cloak and tugged, signaling him to stop.

“Look,” he whispered.

Talion followed his gaze down to the courtyard. More orcs were gathered here than anywhere else in the stronghold. They swarmed in a ring around two combatants, both uruk-hai in full armor. Talion could see this was no drunken brawl. The battling orcs swung their weapons with intent to kill.

The crowd roared as one uruk struck a lethal blow, their cheers drowning out the orc’s dying bellows.

One spectator stood apart from the others, and when the cheers died down, every uruk’s attention shifted to him. The uruk-hai, a muscular individual armored in ornate links of carved bone, crossed his arms over his chest and gave a single nod of acknowledgement.

A captain, Talion guessed. His hand dropped to the hilt of his blade.

But he couldn’t strike now, not with every orc in the encampment gathered around. He would bide his time.

In the courtyard below, a different Uruk muscled through the crowd and smashed into the previous fight’s victor. They both roared, and the battle recommenced.

“What is this?” Talion whispered to Ratbag. “Some kind of blood sport?”

“Worse,” Ratbag hissed. “It’s romance.”

“They’re fighting over a female?” The idea caught Talion off-guard. He had never seen a female orc before.

“Female?” Ratbag scoffed. “There are no female uruk-hai.”

“Explain.”

“We-ell. That’s sort of your parents’ job, innit? Birds and the bees and all that?”

“My patience wears thin, orc.”

“Alright, no need to get touchy about it. There are no female orcs, just males born with different sets of equipment. You know. Innies and outies?”

“Ah. You mean that some orcs have female equipment.”

“ _Not_ female. All orcs are male.” Ratbag growled impatiently. “I won’t get technical, cos’ it would just go over your ignorant tark head. But some orcs have the sticking out bit, and some have the bit where you put it. And then there’s all the organs and whatnot, you know, for growing the pups.”

To Talion’s understanding, that seemed to confirm exactly what he’d just said, but the ranger didn’t argue. There were plenty of things he didn’t understand about the uruk-hai. This was just another.

An orc fell in combat, only to be quickly replaced by another challenger.

“It’s that one,” Ratbag said, nodding toward an orc. “They’re fighting to impress him.”

He meant the orc in the carved bone armor, an impassive island among the cheering, whooping crowd. Talion squinted, trying to see some difference between this uruk and the others, some marker that set him apart as a potential mate. But as far as the ranger could tell, there was no way to tell.

“Is he...attractive? By orc standards?” Talion asked.

“How should I know?” Ratbag snapped. He scratched awkwardly at the back of his neck, and conceded, “He looks healthy enough. And since everyone’s duking it out, he must be high ranking, or else they’d just take turns and hope for the best.”

“There’s a spectacle I’d just as soon miss.”

Another slain orc was being dragged out of the circle, but the amount of uruk-hai in the courtyard only seemed to swell as newcomers jostled for position.

“This’ll last a while. We might as well bugger off,” Ratbag said. “Unless you want to wait and catch a few big-wigs with their pants down?”

“No,” Talion said quickly. “Let’s go.”

Although Ratbag insisted there were no female orcs, Talion was still shaken by the idea of this other kind of uruk-hai scattered invisibly among the ranks. How many had he slain without knowing? Had any of them been--God forbid--pregnant?

The thought made Talion feel sick. He intended to probe Ratbag for more information later, hoping to find out that pregnant orcs stayed out of combat, or better yet, that this whole thing had been Ratbag’s terrible idea of a joke.

Leaving the stronghold the same way they’d come in, the ranger and the orc departed back into the bog without the clan ever finding out they had been invaded.

* * *

Within a week, the Stronghold had been conquered and pawns installed into power, and Talion had nearly forgotten about the strange conversation with Ratbag. The thought of child-bearing orcs had been surprisingly easy to put out of mind.

The ranger had offered Ratbag the position of Captain in the new stronghold. Ratbag had declined without explanation, and when Talion set off for his next conquest, the orc went with him. Talion didn’t mind his company, but Celebrimbor had objections.

“I don’t understand why you let the filthy creature follow you around,” Celebrimbor complained. “Aren’t you bothered by the stench?”

Talion ignored him.

“And that’s another thing. When the orc is nearby, you refuse to answer me, as if to avoid looking foolish. Such a thing is beneath your consideration!”

“My hope is that if I ignore you for long enough, you might leave me alone,” Talion said.

Ratbag looked up. “Eh?”

“Nothing, orc. I was talking to no one,” Talion said, looking pointedly in the Celebrimbor’s direction.

Ratbag tried to follow his gaze but saw nothing; Only Talion could see the wraith.

“I can take a hint,” Celebrimbor said coolly. He turned and started away, vanishing from sight after a few steps.

Talion and Ratbag had been walking for nearly an hour across the dusty plain, but an arrhythmic pattering sound caused Talion to stop and look around. A cold drop hit the top of his head, then another, and the ground turned polka-dotted with the first dark spots of rain.

Within seconds, the drizzle had turned into a downpour. Even though they stood only a few feet apart, Talion could barely see Ratbag through the shifting silver sheet of rain.

“This way,” Ratbag shouted to be heard over the din.

Ratbag started off, and Talion followed, only to lose sight of him immediately.

“Ranger? Ranger!” The orc’s voice was faint, somewhere off Talion’s left.

“I’m here!”

Ratbag appeared out of nowhere and grabbed Talion by the wrist, pulling him through the rain. When his grip began to slip, Talion locked his own hand around Ratbag’s wrist, creating a chain that held taut in spite of the furious downpour that sought to separate them.

Talion wondered how Ratbag could see anything through the opaque curtain of water. Even his wraith vision could not penetrate it, yet Ratbag confidently led Talion across the landscape.

Soon they came to a sheer rock face. It seemed mostly featureless, with no overhang to shield them from the rain. Ratbag groped along the wall until he found a loose stone. He pried it free, and it fell away in a shower of rubble, revealing an indent in the cliff blocked by a single large stone.

Ratbag tried to move the boulder on his own, but the rain had made it slippery. Talion joined in. Grunting with the effort, they toppled it forward, leaving a black socket where the boulder had stood.

“A cave?” Talion asked.

Ratbag slipped into the hole without answering, and Talion ducked in after him.

Inside, the chamber was pitch black, but it felt larger than the small entrance had led Talion to believe. The cold, drafty air raised goosebumps on the back of his neck. Talion couldn’t remember the last time he’d been plunged into such blackness. Then he realized what had changed.

When Celebrimbor had sulked off, he must have taken his dark vision with him. But if Celebrimbor truly severed their connection, Talion would be dead already, so the stubborn elf must not have gone far.

Within the shelter of the cave, the rain had quieted to a shushing drone. Ratbag muttered to himself as he scuffled around, searching for something in the dark.

“Ah! Got it.”

Flint struck steel, and the sparks caught. Ratbag lifted a torch and revealed their surroundings by flickering orange light.

For the most part, it looked like a naturally formed cave, but someone had inexpertly expanded the chamber, digging a higher ceiling and deeper back wall. In the far corner of the cave, the floor was carpeted by pelts. One wall was covered in chiseled patterns. Script, perhaps, but in no language Talion had ever seen.

“What is this place?” Talion asked.

“Just some hole. Who cares? It got us out of the rain.”

“You knew where to find the entrance. You must know who lives here.”

“Nobody lives here.” Ratbag’s sharp, crooked teeth caught a glint of firelight as he snarled. “Now drop it, Ranger.”

Talion didn’t push the matter. If Celebrimbor had been around, he would have scolded him for obeying the orc, but Talion had been around Ratbag long enough to know there was no point in prying. The uruk would either lie or scuttle off if he truly wanted to avoid a subject.

There was an iron ring bolted to the wall, and Ratbag slid the torch into it before shaking his wet hair like a dog. He began to unclasp soaking wet pieces of armor, while Talion shrugged off his cloak and laid it out on the floor to dry.

“How about a story, Ranger?” Ratbag asked after he had stripped to the waist and made himself comfortable among the pelts. Talion sat nearby.

“I’m not much of a storyteller.”

“A song, then?”

“Nor am I a bard.”

“Fat lot of good you are,” Ratbag complained. “And you probably didn’t even bring a flask of grog to share with your old friend Ratbag.”

“I never asked you to follow me,” Talion reminded him.

“I had to get out of the stronghold.”

“Why?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“And _you_ underestimate me.”

“Nosy shrahk. You want to know why I couldn’t stay at the Stronghold? I’ll tell you why.” Ratbag paused for a long time. Just when Talion was just about to prompt him, the orc finally began to speak again.

“You remember what Ratbag told you, the night we were spying? About that breeder in season? I didn’t tell you how the clan knew about it. It’s not because the breeder told ‘em. I mean, maybe he did, I don’t know, but he didn’t have to. Uruk can smell that from a mile away.”

“I see,” Talion said, although he did not.

“Well, it’s embarrassing, innit?” Ratbag demanded. “And it isn't all civilized like what you saw. Some uruks, when the instinct kicks in, they get a bit pushy.”

In the close quarters of the cave, Talion finally noticed the ‘stench’ that Celebrimbor had mentioned. It wasn’t a stench, though. Nothing like the mix of body odor, wet fur and grog that hung around most groups of uruk like a miasma. This smell was earthy, almost pleasant.

“You said there are two kinds of orcs,” Talion said. “Which are you?”

Ratbag shot him a glare. “Why do you want to know?”

“I don’t.”

“Then why did you ask?”

Talion shook his head. “Forget that I did.”

After the uncomfortable silence stretched a minute into what felt like ages, Ratbag loosed a sigh.

“You know the kind of orc who’d prefer not to be stuck in a stronghold full of stupid, horny orcs when he goes into season? That’s the sort I am.”

“Hold on, let me get this straight. You’re in this...season? Now?”

“Right.”

“Which means you have the, uh. Reciprocal parts.”

“You can stop beating around the bush, Ranger. It’s called a cunt. And yes, I have one.”

The more time Talion spent confined in the shelter with Ratbag, the less he could ignore the smell. It filled his head and made it hard to think. It was causing a reaction in his body, too, although he was trying not to think about that.

“The smell you mentioned,” Talion said. “Does it affect men?”

Ratbag looked suspiciously at the ranger. “You’re a man. You tell me.”

Talion glanced away. “I don’t know.”

Ratbag sidled closer. “Yes, you do.”

“It’s not right. Men and uruk-hai…together in that way.”

Despite his own protests, Talion didn’t stop Ratbag from crawling into his lap.

He tried to get control of himself and remember how he normally saw Ratbag, without the influence of this strange heat. He tried to see the figure straddling him as Ratbag the Coward, Ratbag of the Black Hand, Ratbag the crooked and cunning and mean.

But as his hands rose hesitantly to the orc’s waist, sliding over his hips and around to trace the curve of his spine, those descriptions fell away, and he could see only Ratbag.

This wasn’t delusion. Even in his muddled state, Talion understood that the orc had not changed. He was the same as he had ever been. It was only that Talion was seeing him--really seeing him--for the first time.

He could see the pulse flickering in Ratbag’s throat. With his torso bare, the orc was clearly too thin beneath cords of lean muscle. Where Talion had once seen alien features, he now recognized the vulnerable look in the orc’s eyes. He wondered if that expression was mirrored on his own face.

“We can stop,” Talion said, his voice almost unrecognizable, low and raw with desire. “You came here to get away from this.”

“Not away from you, Ranger. Never from you.”

Talion bent to kiss the orc’s neck. The orc gasped, shivering under his touch, and Talion was struck by how small the uruk was compared to others of his kind. He could easily fold Ratbag’s entire body into his arms. A starburst of protective instinct bloomed in his chest. It made him want to hold the orc forever, to keep him safe from the savage world outside.

But Talion was pressed by a more urgent instinct now, so he didn’t hold the orc forever. Instead he lowered him down across the pelts. Ratbag trembled beneath him as Talion pressed a line of kisses down the orc’s neck and trailing down in body, nipping in sensitive places that made Ratbag gasp or, in one particularly ticklish spot, giggle and squirm.

“Is it okay?” Talion asked when he reached the hem of Ratbag’s pants.

“Ye,” Ratbag croaked. His face was flushed darkly, watching Talion loosen the laces on Ratbag's pants and slide them down his narrow hips.

In the back of his mind, Talion had been worried that Ratbag might be too different down there, too strange. He was relieved at the sight. The orc’s cunt was dark, engorged with black blood instead of red, but otherwise they were the same receptive organs that a human might have.

Here, the smell was overwhelming. Talion’s face burned and his cock strained in his pants. His hips jerked of their own accord.

Ratbag’s sex showed evidence of his own arousal. His labial folds were slick, and his clit so swollen at was practically a cockhead in its own right. Talion pressed a kiss to the turgid nub. When his tongue flicked out, Ratbag made a keening whine.

He dragged his tongue slowly over Ratbag’s clit, once, again, then again. In his youth, his attention would have strayed. He would have indulged every whim, licking and kissing and sucking, never in one place long enough to pleasure his partner. But over the years with his wife, he had perfected the technique.

Lapping steadily at that central nerve, Talion explored lower with his fingers, thumbing over slick folds and eventually pushing inside to the first knuckle.

Ratbag whined again, tangling fingers in Talion’s hair. His thighs clenched around the man’s neck as his cunt clenched around his fingers.

Talion probed shallowly at first, but soon he began to twist and plunge deeper, faster, until the orc was a moaning, writhing mess beneath him.

“Ah!” Ratbag barked.

He yanked Talion’s hair as his whole body twisted up off the ground, every muscle taut and quivering.

When Ratbag’s body slackened, Talion finally allowed his mouth to rove on, to tongue into swollen folds and lap up the sweetness there. He pressed a kiss to the inside of Ratbag’s thigh, and the orc sighed, petting Talion’s hair.

“Nobody’s ever done that to Ratbag before,” the orc said.

“Never?” Talion asked.

“Uruk aren’t the most considerate lovers.”

“What about you?” Talion asked, sliding up Ratbag’s body to kiss his jaw. “Are you a considerate lover?”

“Dunno. A breeder’s just s’posed to lie still long enough to knock him up.”

With the smell and his own desire clouding his logic, Talion had forgotten the purpose of Ratbag’s heat. Remembering needled him with fear.

“I can’t impregnate you,” Talion said, pushing himself up to a sitting position.

Ratbag scowled. “No one asked you to!”

“If you’re in season, and we continue this-”

“You telling me tarks never heard of pulling out?”

“That’s not always effective,” Talion argued. “I should know. Loreth and I had planned to wait at least a year to have children, but our son was conceived less than a month after our wedding.”

“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” Ratbag snarled. “Pull out, don’t pull out, it doesn’t matter, cos there in’t no chance of pups. Alright?”

“How can you know that?” Talion demanded.

Ratbag avoided his gaze. “Ten seasons with no pups. And not for lack of trying.”

“Oh,” Talion said, suddenly at a loss for words. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t need your pity,” Ratbag spat. “Better to have no pups than a dead one. Ratbag should pity you!”

Ratbag’s words had none of the intended sting. Talion folded his arms around the snarling, bristling orc and dragged him down onto the pelts, and held him until Ratbag relaxed in his embrace.

It wasn’t long before their hands began to rove over each other’s bodies. Talion unlaced his own pants to release his straining cock, which had leapt right back to attention when Ratbag had begun to touch him.

The orc looked down and laughed.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s so pale.”

“Really?”

“It looks like a fish’s belly.” Ratbag cackled again.

“Well, if you don’t like it, I’ll just put it away.” Talion started to hitch his pants back up, but Ratbag grabbed his wrist to stop him.

“Don’t.”

The orc’s long, agile fingers wrapped around his cock, making Talion gasp. There could be no preamble. The heat smell seemed to heighten sensation, and Talion knew that if Ratbag spent too long teasing him, he would finish before they started.

He propped up on one elbow and positioned himself over Ratbag, guiding his cock to the orc’s entrance.

Ratbag’s breath hitched. He stiffened beneath Talion.

“Are you sure this is okay?” Talion asked.

“Would you stop asking questions and put it in already?” Ratbag snapped.

Talion rolled his eyes but did as Ratbag demanded.

The orc’s nails bit into Talion’s shoulders as the ranger filled him to the hilt. Ratbag’s cunt flexed and squeezed around him, and for a moment Talion felt light-headed. He breathed heavily; his head bowed into the crook of Ratbag’s neck.

“Feels good,” Ratbag rasped in his ear.

Talion started to move, thrusting in and out with deliberate slowness to stave off orgasm, but it was difficult. The friction felt divine. It had been so long, and the heat smell was driving him wild. He wanted to draw this out, but each time he fully sheathed inside Ratbag’s quivering sex, sparks flickered in his belly and nearly pushed him over.

“I can't hold out,” Talion panted.

“Go on, then,” Ratbag said. “Breed me.”

Those words shot an arrow of pleasure straight through Talion, and he succumbed, slamming into the orc in fast, arrhythmic thrusts. Ratbag muffled a cry by biting into Talion’s shoulder. It should have hurt, but the pain was blocked out by the shower of sparks alighting in every nerve.

He rode out the orgasm with his forehead pressed against Ratbag’s, his fingers laced with the orc’s. His bucking slowed, then stilled, and the shelter was silent besides their own ragged breathing and the faint hiss of rain outside.

After they caught their breath, Talion climbed to his feet and began gathering his clothes. The heat smell had abated, or maybe just become less noticeable now that Talion had slaked the dark instinct. Shame crept over him.

As if on cue, Celebrimbor stepped out of the ether, favoring Talion with a withering look.

“I leave you alone for five minutes and you breed with an orc,” he said.

Talion turned away from him as he buckled his belt.

“You can ignore me if you’d like, but it won’t change what you’ve done. What would your wife think?”

“She would think it funny,” Talion said aloud. “I doubt I would ever hear the end of it.”

“Who?” Ratbag asked.

“Never mind. I was just musing to myself.”

When he turned back to Celebrimbor, he had vanished. But Talion sensed the elf had returned in some ineffable way. The cave, barely burnished by the torch’s glow, had lightened with the return of Celebrimbor’s dark vision.

Ratbag had finally rolled out of the nest and begun to redress. He glanced sideways at Talion, as if afraid of what he might see. Perhaps not wanting to see regret in the ranger’s expression.

But Celebrimbor’s ridicule had the opposite effect. The elf had wanted to shame him by mentioning his wife. But when Talion imagined telling Loriel the story of how he’d taken shelter in a cave with an orc in heat and ended up screwing him, he could easily picture her reaction: she would laugh herself sick and tease him mercilessly.

His shame evaporated like ground fog at midday, and Talion wrapped an arm around Ratbag.

“Perhaps we should camp here and set out in the morning. After so many nights spent on the marsh, these are far more comfortable lodgings,” Talion said.

“It would have been Ratbag’s den.”

Talion looked down at him, confused.

“This place,” Ratbag said, gesturing around. “I knew it was here cos’ I’m the one who dug it out. Furnished it, too. Just in case...you know. Just in case.”

Talion’s first instinct was to console, but he remembered that Ratbag wanted no pity, and bit his tongue. “I’m impressed. You’ve made a fine den.”

“Really? You think so?” Ratbag grinned.

“It will be a shame to leave,” Talion said honestly.

After the torch had been snuffed out and the stone rolled back into the entrance, they retired to the sleeping corner, although they didn’t do much sleeping there that night.


End file.
